The Pecan Park Eagle

Tom Herman
Offensive Coordinator
Ohio State

The next University of Houston football coach hiring is pretty much something of a directional crossroads pick. Do the Cougars go with a candidate like the 39 year old genius Tom Herman, the offensive coordinator for Ohio State and 2014 winner of the Frank Broyles Award that goes each year to the man designated as assistant college coach of the year? Or do they try to wrap up 67 year old former Cougar linebacker (1966-68) Wade Phillips and his established local bond and great record as a pretty fair defensive coach at all levels of the game?

A guy like 39 year old Herman could give UH an immediate short-time boost with a return of the lights-out offensive game that has been the Cougar signature in football in recent years. A fellow like 67 year old Phillips could give the Cougars what they thought they had found during the tenure of current Baylor coach Art Briles – a Cougar alum whose bond with UH would count more than cash and allow him to stay at the helm for years to come – in spite of better opportunities elsewhere.

Of course, it’s pretty much a given that the UH “internship” of a man like Herman would last only so long as his accomplishments propelled him to a much better paying job in a more prestigious football-playing school in one of the five big conferences in college football. That’s just the nature of the beast at UH. Playing a full schedule of games against teams that don’t mean much as a member of a conference that really doesn’t matter has a sobering effect over time on blind fan loyalty.

As Marshall University of C-USA learned this year, their 12-1 record against other cream puff conference schools only allowed them to crack the outer branches of most Top 25 polls, earning them a place in one of the numerous meaningless bowls that may have some appeal to the players, their families, and a few alums, but few others. It’s pretty much the same gig for members of the new UH conference, the American Alliance. – If you win, so what? If you lose, so what?

When UH got whacked in their very first home opener at the new TDECU Stadium on campus this season, it was to UTSA of C-USA by a score of 27-7. I will never forget walking out of the place that hot late August night and talking with another grumbling geezer Coog – who looked old enough to have there as a student in the late 1950s period when I was on campus too.

The guy kept saying: “This never should have happened. – We gotta get a new coach.” He was ready then to nail the just-fired Tony Levine to the wall.

I mumbled something back along the lines that it doesn’t seem to do us much good since the really good ones always leave UH after a couple of good years because the money and the prestige is better elsewhere.

“That’s OK with me,” the other old Cougar shot back in quick response. “I’d rather have a good coach for two years – than a bad coach for ten!”

Wade Phillips
UH Linebacker
1966-1968

Maybe in my old age I’m finally getting the kind of perspective that has allowed me to continue my enjoyment of college football. What I got from my days of growing up near the UH campus and then actually attending school there as a working student who still graduated in four years (1956-60) was golden. It was the foundation for everything else good that’s happened for me in my academic and professional life. Nothing in life can ever take that away from me. I simply no longer die a thousand deaths as though it were my own  each time UH loses a game. That’s just not what this business of sports is really all about for me – although I know it is for many, if not most sports fans at all levels.

Would I like to see the SEC or Big 12 open the door of membership to UH? You betcha, I would! That will happen when either of those big time conferences decides that inviting UH to be a member is worth the risk of opening the door to broader competition from UH for talent recruitment in the Houston area.

To me, the two candidates mentioned here today are the argument against my nameless old Cougar walking companion’s objections, even though they are 180 degrees apart from each other on the “what are we looking for” specs. – With a guy like Tom Herman, we could land a good coach for two years. With Wade Phillips, we could land a different kind of good coach for ten years.

Have an enjoyable Saturday, everybody!